


and on and on and on

by 28ghosts



Series: In Our Bedroom After The War [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 03:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15234828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: Garak and Dax and Bashir, on Cardassia.[standalone; part of a personal 'DS9 fic for every song on In Our Bedroom After The War' project]





	and on and on and on

_I want the story to go on and on and on and on_  
_And on and on and on and on and on and on_  
_But it can't go on_  
_But it can't go on_  
_But it can't go on_  
_But it can't go on_  
_But it can't go on_  
_But it can't go on_  
\- Life 2: The Unhappy Ending (Stars, In Our Bedroom After The War)

* * *

"Dr. Parmak told me I could find you here."

Dax's voice is not a surprise. Kelas had commed him to warn him in case, quote, he insisted on making his escape before his friend arrived. Bashir's friend, Garak corrected him as always. Bashir's friend, not his.

Garak has finished his lunch, though his plate and napkins are messily splayed out at Bashir's bedside table alongside a padd, open to a medical journal per Kelas's suggestion. Having no particular interest in ganglion cell clusters, Garak understands perhaps half of the Standard words involved. Kelas keeps an eye out for articles he thinks Bashir would like, though, and sends them to Garak. Garak reads them to Bashir. Bashir, in his coma, no doubt hears none of it. It is kind of Kelas nonetheless, and a welcome relief from the Earth fiction Garak has now read countless hours of out loud.

Dax stands at the foot of Bashir's bed, looking fond. "I'm glad you still eat lunch with him. He'd appreciate that."

Aside from Garak and the medical staff, she is his most frequent visitor. She brings flowers sometimes, and packets of genuine Tarkalean tea she pours out in shallow saucers like an aromatic. She used to joke, months ago, that the scent might wake him. Less of that now, these months later.

And those months ago, Garak would have attempted some rejoinder. Now he watches as Dax goes to Kukalaka, tucked away behind Bashir's biobed, to tuck the stuffed bear in under one of Bashir's arms. "Hi, Julian," Dax says. Then, drily, "Since you didn't tell me what you wanted from Betazed, I didn't bring you anything." She adjusts his bedsheet. "You can yell at me about it when you wake up, I guess. I'll make it up to you."

Something about Dax's presence always obliges Garak to play along with pretending Bashir might wake up at any moment, and so he leans in and reaches out for Bashir's hand. "I told her that you can never go wrong with flowers, but, per usual, my advice seems to have been ignored."

Dax laughs to herself, quiet. "Thanks for trying, Garak, but you sound like you'd rather be anywhere else."

Garak hmms in acknowledgement. As for her part, Dax lacks some of the usual commitment as well, but as Garak is technically her host, he won't be so rude as to mention it. "My capacity for morbidity is not, let it be known, infinite."

"This isn't morbid," Dax protests. He can all but hear Dax wrinkle her nose in displeasure. "Strange, sure. Sometimes depressing." She flicks Kukalaka's nose. "Not morbid, though."

Bashir's hand is limp in his. "Lieutenant Dax, what do you know about our funeral traditions?"

"Just that outsiders aren't meant to view your dead." Dax holds herself, now, as Jadzia once did. Shoulders squared and hands clasped behind her back. "That's about it. Cardassians don't have quite the same reputation for privacy as, say, the Breen, but you're up there, no offense."

Garak half-nods in acknowledgement of Dax's intended spirit. He lays Bashir's hand down again. The man's fingers lay strange on the sheets. Garak sighs and adjusts the angle of Bashir's wrist. "We prefer home funerals," Garak says, "when we have the luxury of...relatively few dead."

Not as in the months following the conclusion of the Dominion War, when fallout had blanketed Cardassia like a hand over a mouth. The dead had to be disintegrated in the streets.

"It gives us a chance to say goodbye. A chance to remember the dead, and to make our peace with their passing. The Cardassian memory, Lieutenant, is keen, and to spend time with our dead helps us not spend our days remembering the departed as they once were."

After a long moment, Dax says, "And Julian laid out like this..."

"Quite," says Garak.

He hears the Trill sigh and hears her approach. There is plenty of time for a deflection or for him to move, and instead he lets her rest her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Garak. I miss him too."

Her hand drops as she presumably takes in the same grim tableau as Garak: a Human man, more pale than he once was, surrounded by medical equipment and the tokens from well-wishers. A ragged stuffed bear tucked in next to him. Were he a Cardassian, it would be a touching farewell to a man well-loved by his family.

Bashir's mother had visited once, alone. It had been Kelas to bring her to the hospital. Garak couldn't bear it.

"I'll leave you alone for a moment." Dax's voice has gone quiet. Not so long ago, it would have riled Garak to the point of quick, casual cruelty. Today he listens to Dax leave, and he watches the regulated rise-and-fall of Bashir's chest as the man breathes.

Once he is alone, Garak curls his first finger under Bashir's wrist to where that shallow, beloved pulse is. He closes his eyes. Still alive, still breathing. For now.

What would Julian have him do? Would the man forgive him for letting his body age in a bed? For how long? It won't be much longer now until Garak has as many memories of lunch with Bashir like this as he does with the man while he lived, truly lived.

And after that, Garak won't be able to take it anymore.

Ah, but not yet. Garak stands. At least Bashir is safe here, and his friends come to see him. He brushes his fingertips through the fringe of hair sitting over the Human's forehead. Perhaps if this is none other than a years-long funeral, then Bashir deserves it, and his loved ones, his fiercely loved ones, deserve the chance to say goodbye as well.

O'Brien is coming in some months. Kira whenever she can, sometimes with the young Sisko. They bring things. Flowers in hand-pinched pots and stories of what Bashir has been missing.

Exactly, in every detail, like a funeral.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3
> 
> (big big big thanks to @thericketandoo; got this idea while talkin to her)


End file.
